Energy Harvesting from Electromagnetic Energy Radiating from

AC Power Lines
Vikram Gupta, Arvind Kandhalu, Ragunathan (Raj) Rajkumar
Real-time and Multimedia Systems Laboratory
Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA
{vikramg, akandhal, raj}@ece.cmu.edu

Abstract
There has been considerable interest in energy harvesting
for wireless sensor networks. Energy harvesting from thermal sources such as body heat and mechanical sources such
as human motion have been proposed. There are also sensor
network systems that harvest energy from the visible part of
the electromagnetic spectrum. However, ambient light levels in indoor environments are typically significantly lower
than those found outdoors and highly dependent on the nature of the indoor environment considered. Recently, lowpower clock synchronization using electromagnetic energy
radiating from AC power lines was proposed. In this paper,
we go a step ahead and try to answer the question: Can energy be harvested from the electromagnetic energy radiating
from AC power lines and use it to operate a wireless sensor
network with a low duty-cycle? We find that such energy
harvesting appears promising.

Introduction

Many schemes have been proposed recently focussing in

the development of systems capable of harnessing useful
electrical energy from existing environmental sources, especially in the wireless sensor networking community [6, 21].
Photo-Voltaic conversion of visible part of the electromagnetic spectrum to electrical power is well established and
Photo-Voltaic cells provide relatively high efficiency over a
broad range of wavelengths. These devices are typically low
cost and provide voltage and current levels that are close to
those required for micro-electronics. Conversion of ambient RF signals to useful electrical energy is far more challenging due to the broadband, low intensity nature of the
signals typically present. An example of a system drawing energy from RF signals are crystal radio kits [17] that
draw their power directly from AM radio stations, which
play audibly through high-impedance headphones without
needing a local energy source. One of the examples of
similar harvesting scheme is the aftermarket modules that
flash LEDs using energy from electromagnetic waves when
a cell phone uses its radio. Rather than relying on the
limited energy scavenged from ambient radiation, other approaches actively beam power from a transmitter to remote
devices. The dream of wirelessly broadcasting power to an
urban area dates back to the turn of the 20th century and
Nicola Tesla [3], who experimented with grandiose concepts
of global resonance and gigantic step-up coils that radiated

strong, 150 kHz electromagnetic fields able to illuminate

gas-filled light bulbs attached to a local antenna and ground
at large distances [23]. Recently researchers have experimented with microwave transmission of power in domestic
environments [2]. At much lower power levels, short-range
wireless power transmission is now commonplace in passive
Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) systems [11], which
derive their energy inductively, capacitively or radiatively
from the tag reader.
Researchers have explored the possibility of extracting
power from the magnetic fields from high-voltage power
lines [10]. Many of these techniques use a current transformer to convert the magnetic fields to usable current. A
recent work [9] describes energy harvesting from power
lines attached to electric motors. Solutions based on current
transformers require that the single current carrying wire be
passed through it. There are some commercial products[22]
which can be snapped on a high-voltage single wire. All
similar techniques are quite limited in applications because
of their placement constraints.
Recently, Anthony Rowe et.al. designed an LC tank
based receiver circuit tuned to the AC 60Hz and used the
received signal for clock synchronization [19]. In this paper, we investigate the feasibility of harvesting energy from
the magnetic fields emanating from the AC power lines in
addition to synchronization. Average available power from
this harvesting scheme is lower than the requirements of a
typical sensor node, so the node should only be turned on
when enough energy has been accumulated for the useful
work. The mismatch in duty-cycles and wake-up times of
different nodes in a network will severely constrain the coordination among nodes. Therefore, by powering a wireless
sensor device through the magnetic fields we can also exploit
the dual advantage of maintaining the clock synchronization
using the same signal. It was established in [19] that nodes
may remain synchronized for long periods of time without
exchanging messages because of the global clock from the
EM fields. However, other energy harvesting schemes with
limited available power may not be practical if frequent communication is required just to maintain the clock synchronization.

Motivation

From Amperes law[7] [8], we know that the magnetic

field generated from a group of closely bundled wires is de-

pendent on the net current flowing through them. Given that

the live and neutral wires carrying current in opposite directions are usually placed close together, the magnetic fields
produced by them should cancel each other. It is however,
interesting to note that there exists electromagnetic energy
in typical home and office areas either due to separation distance between live and neutral wires or imbalances in ground
loop [14]. Earlier studies [5] also suggest that the ambient
magnetic field in homes vary from 0.01 to 10 Gauss near appliances and typically exceeds 100 Gauss in industries with
heavy electrical machinery. Additionally, we observed in our
experiments that the cancellation of magnetic field is almost
negligible if the separation between the wires is more than a
few inches. This magnetic field can be converted to electrical energy source with clever design and careful placement
of sensor devices. A typical office space building has a dense
network of power line cabling, and some of those wires
would carry currents in the orders of 5-10 amperes. The
ubiquity of power lines and the magnitude of current running
through them in any human occupied environment makes energy harvesting from the stray electromagnetic fields seem
attractive.

Feasibility Study

The magnetic field at a point P at a distance r from an

infinitely long conductor carrying an alternating current with
a peak amplitude of Io and frequency is:
B=

I0 sin(t)
2r

(1)

where B is the magnetic flux density and is the magnetic

permeability given by r 0 (r is relative permeability).
The magnitude of the magnetic flux acting on a coil with N
turns, cross sectional area A placed with its plane perpendicular to the magnetic field is given by:
= NBA
The induced voltage on the coil due to the rate of change of
the magnetic flux acting on it will be:
d NAIcos(t)
=
dt
2r

Figure 1. Experimental setup showing the inductors

placed in between two parallel conductors carrying the
live and return current. We measured the voltage across
the inductors to estimate the maximum power available
from the magnetic field.
The experimental setup is shown in Figure 1. We laid
two parallel conductors on a graduated flat board, and these
conductors were used to power a load consisting of ten light
bulbs of 100 Watts each in parallel. When the complete load
is applied, a current of 8.4 Amps flows through the conductors. We explored many inductors for conducting our experiments.The parameters of the inductors are shown in table
1. The results presented in the paper are using two inductors with inductance values of L = 15H and L = 4.50H. The
experiments for each of the inductors were conducted separately in order to avoid any magnetic coupling effects.
We present the results for the following experiments:
Measured induced voltage on the inductors for varying
distances from a pair of conductors, where the distance
between the conductors is very high (> 15 inches).

(2)

Change the supplied load and measure the induced voltage

The above equation shows that the net voltage induced on

the coil placed in a magnetic field increases proportionally
with frequency, number of turns, and area. It decreases proportionally with the distance. It is interesting to note that the
induced voltage can be increased with a coil with high relative permeability. In the following section, we describe the
experimental setup and our observations.

Keep the conductors at a distance of one inch apart with

the inductors between the conductors and measure the
variation of the induced voltage along with the height
of the inductors from the plane of the conductors.

V=

4 Experimental Study
4.1 Experiment Setup
We need to measure the average power that can be extracted from the magnetic fields emanating from AC power
lines, in order to understand the feasibility of proposed energy harvesting system. We conducted controlled experiments where we observed the power available from various
arrangements of current carrying conductors and configuration of inductors in the magnetic field associated with the
conductors.

Measure the voltage induced on the inductor when

placed over a bunch of wires passing in a metal conduit
typically seen in buildings.

4.2

Experiment Observations

In this section, we measure power drawn from the inductor when it is placed in an alternating magnetic field originating from the magnetic fields. It is explained in Section 5
that power drawn from a source is near its maximum with a
matched impedance load. In our system, the inductor is the
source of the voltage, and will be used to drive a sensor device. Figure 2 is the screenshot of the oscilloscope showing
voltage across two different inductors placed between two
parallel wires carrying 8.4A current in the opposite direc-

900
L1 = 15H, 1000 ohms
L2 = 4.5H, 48 ohms

800
700

Power (uW)

Table 1. Various inductors used in the experiment, their

series resistance values and corresponding capacitor values to ensure maximum energy transfer
Inductance Resistance
Matched
(mH)
(Ohms)
Capacitor (F)
15000
980
0.47
11513
852
0.62
4500
49
1.56
3550
118.5
1.98
1700
21
4.2
1500
40
4.7
320
10
22

600
500
400
300
200
100
0
0

Distance (inches)

Figure 3. The variation of induced power with distance

from a pair of alternating current carrying conductors
where the distance between the conductors is high (> 15)
inches
.
450
400

L1 = 15 H, 1000 ohms
L2 = 4.5 H, 48 ohms

Figure 2. Oscilloscope capture of voltage across two inductors when placed in the magnetic field as shown in
Figure 1. Channel 1(yellow) of the oscilloscope is connected the to coil with L=15 H, and channel 2(blue) to
the coil with L=4.5 H. The RMS voltage can be seen on
the top right corner.

Power (uW)

350
300
250
200
150
100
50
0

10

Distance (inches)

Figure 4. Variation of induced power on inductors when

placed one inch away from live conductor. X-axis is distance between the conductors.
1200

Peak to Peak Induced Voltage (mV)

tions (corresponding to 1000W load). The RMS voltage at

the terminals of the inductor is shown at top right corner of
the figure. Channel 1 of the oscilloscope is connected to the
inductor with inductance value 15 H and channel 2 to the one
with 4.50 H.
Power measured from a single current carrying conductor is shown in Figure 3. The inductor is placed in the same
plane as the wire. Power available from the inductor varies
inversely with the distance as described in Section 5. On
the other hand, if the location of the coil with respect to the
single wire is fixed, the voltage across it drops when the return current wire is moved closer to the other wire. In the
case when the conductors are close to each other, the magnetic fields cancel out and the magnitude of this cancellation
depends on the distance between the two wires. This phenomena is shown in Figure 4. Magnetic fields however, do
not cancel out when the inductor is placed between the wires
or vertically above the plane of the conductors. In this configuration, the horizontal components negate each other, but
the vertical components of magnetic fields add up. The variation of peak-to-peak voltage across the inductors with the
height above the conductor plane is shown in Figure 5.
We also measured the voltage across the inductor when
placed close to typical electrical wiring installations supplying normal load of computers and lights in our lab (shown in

L1 = 15H, 1000 ohms

L2 = 4.5H, 48 ohms
1000

800

600

400

200

0
0

0.2

0.4

0.6

0.8

1.2

1.4

1.6

1.8

Height of Inductor from Conductor Plane

Figure 5. Induced voltage on an inductor placed between

two alternating current carrying conductors that are one
inch apart. X-axis denotes the height of the inductor from
the conductor plane.

Energy
Harves,ng
Element

DC/DC
Converter

Super
Capacitor
/ Ba:ery

Rectifier Filter

Figure 8. Typical Energy Harvesting Circuit.

Figure 6. Inductor placed close to the wires in a conduit

in a computer lab & capturing magnetic field close to a
commercial high amperage cable.

Figure 7. Oscilloscope capture of voltage across parallel

combination of L and C (Table 1), when placed in the
magnetic field.
the left side of Figure 6). When the 15 H inductor was placed
close to the wires in a conduit, we saw 412 mV across the
inductor. When coil is placed vertically above the cable in
which live and neutral are bundled together in same shielding, the induced voltage was 340 mV.
When a matched capacitor is connected in parallel to
the inductor, we observe the resonance effect, where all the
charge on the inductor is transferred to capacitor and viceversa without any reactive losses. Some charge nevertheless,
is lost because of the series resistance of the coil and leakage
current in capacitor. Figure 7 shows the voltage across the
tuned LC parallel circuit for each of the two inductors.

Design Considerations

The choice of components for the energy harvesting circuit is extremely critical. There are delicate tradeoffs that
need to be made maximum energy conversion.

5.1

Resonance Circuit

In our system, the magnetic field is being converted to an

induced EMF (ElectroMotive Force) with an inductor. The
magnitude of the induced EMF is directly proportional to the
inductance, which in turn depends on the number of turns,
the permeability of the core, area of the coil and its orientation with respect to the magnetic field. An off the shelf

inductor of high inductance, inspite of getting high induced

voltage may not necessarily give high power output. This is
so because coils with higher inductance values tend to have
high resistance due to the large number of turns. This limits
the maximum derivable power.
The maximum energy transfer theorem states that, maximum power can be obtained from a source if the load
impedance is the conjugate of the source impedance. We
can estimate power available from magnetic field by assuming that we have a perfectly matched load which is connected
across the inductor. Typically, the matched load for an inductor would be a capacitor in series with a resistance equal to
RL such that:
1

f =
2 LC
RL = RS
where f is the frequency of the AC power (for example, 60
Hz in the US), and RS is the series resistance of the inductor.
Now that if the load is matched, average power dissipated
in inductor and capacitor is zero, hence maximum available
average power is given by the following equation:
V2
P = rms
RS
It can be understood from the above equation that the
available power depends entirely on the properties of the
coil. Mathematically,
2 N 2 A2 I02
P
dt2 RS
where, is the permeability of the inductor core, N is
number of turns, A is effective cross section area I0 is the
current flowing in the inductor and dt is the distance of the
coil from the conductor. For a given magnetic field strength
and the distance of the coil from the wire:
P

5.2

2 N 2 A2
RS

Energy Harvesting Circuitry

The design of an energy harvesting system is challenging since the power derived from ambient sources tends to
be unregulated, intermittent and small. A typical energy harvesting ciruit is shown in Figure 8.
Microelectronic devices and rechargeable batteries usually require a DC power supply. Hence a power conditioning
circuitry is necessary to rectify the AC power to stable DC
power. Typically a power conditioning circuit is sensitive to
the efficiency of power extraction. Ottoman et al. [15, 16]
derived the optimal DC voltage required to maximize the
power extraction under the direct connection of the load to

an AC-DC rectifier of a piezoelectric power generator. They

also presented an adaptive solution using the DC-DC convertoer to achieve automated power optimization. A sensorless buck-boost converter running in discontinous mode was
used by Lefeuvre et al. [13] to track the optimal working
points of the generator. Badel et al. [1], Guyomar et al. [4],
Richard et al. [18], and Xu et al. [20] developed several
conditioning circuits to increase piezoelectric power generation that incorporated electronic switches and inductors to
shape the delivered voltage. Na Kong et al. [12] recently
proposed a two-stage power conditioning circuit consisting
of an AC-DC converter followed by a DC-DC converter for
a vibration-based energy harvesting system.

Limitations

Not unlike many other energy harvesting schemes, there

are some limitations of using magnetic fields of the AC
power lines. Firstly, magnetic field strength from the power
lines is significant only in their close proximity, which limits the freedom of placement of harvesting system close to
the AC wires. However, we can extract power even if the
wires are laid inside the wall and the device is placed on the
wall at a distance of few(2-3) inches. If the power cables
are deployed in metal conduits then most of the magnetic
field is constrained inside it, which nullifies any possibility
of harvesting energy. Second limitation of the system is that
a highly efficient power transfer circuit is required to store
charge in a super-capacitor with minimum losses.

Conclusions

Performance improvements in battery technology and the

power requirements of electronics are not keeping pace with
the increasing demands of many wireless sensor networking applications. For this reason, there has been considerable interest in the development of systems capable of extracting usable electrical energy from existing environmental
sources. Such sources include ambient electromagnetic energy, thermal gradients, vibration and other forms of motion.
In this paper, we have provided a feasibility study of harvesting electrical energy from stray electromagnetic energy of
AC power lines. We conducted many experiments with various off-the-shelf inductors and current carrying conductor
combinations. The results are promising in that with easily
available components, up to 1-2 mw of power can be harvested. As future work, we intend to construct an inductor
that is optimized for harvesting energy in this context. Also,
we need to design and implement energy-harvesting circuits
with high power-transfer efficiency.

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